A variety of home-located electronic devices such as, televisions, video recorders, air conditioners, microwave ovens, washing machines, and personal computers (PCs) are currently being used in the home. While such devices are frequently used independently, due to the lack of a common user interface, they are rarely used in conjunction with each other.
Obviously, if such devices could be controlled using a common user interface and also collectively managed, their ease and range of use could be greatly enhanced.
There are known several different methods for controlling household home-located electronic devices. In one method, a home server is provided. This server is used to control a home network, which is used in turn to control household home-located electronic devices.
By utilizing such a system, it has been proposed to remotely control household home-located electronic devices via a remote control means installed in a house. In this way, a user is able to obtain status information on home-located electronic devices in a house, and to control their function from a location remote from the house. In particular, the following three methods are known for use in systems comprising a home network having a remote control function.
(1) Remote Control Method (a)
The remote control method (a) is a home network comprising a home server which is continuously connected to the Internet. A user controls the home-located electronic devices in a house by communicating with the home server via the Internet from a portable telephone comprising a function of the Internet connection, a portable terminal, such as PHS (Personal Handyphone System) or other terminals, such as a notebook PC.
(2) Remote Control Method (b)
The remote control method (b) is a home network also comprising a home server which has a remote connection function, for example, RAS (Remote Access Service) in Windows (Registered Trademark) of the home server. A user performs a dial-up connection to the home server from the terminal of a notebook PC or the like, to thereby control home-located electronic devices in a house.
(3) Remote Control Method (c)
The remote control method (c) is a method by which to control home-located electronic devices in a house by utilizing a telephone, such as a pay phone, a portable telephone or a PC which can perform the function of transmitting a DTMF (Dial Tone Multi Frequency) signal. A user connects to the home server via a telephone line. The connected home server performs voice guidance with regard to the control of the home-located electronic devices. In accordance with the voice guidance, the user transmits the DTMF signal from the telephone, and performs the remote control operation of the home-located electronic devices.
The above-described methods for remote control of home-located electronic devices are subject to some limitations and disadvantages.
In remote control method (a), the home server has to be connected to the Internet all of the time and the cost of running is consequently high.
In remote control method (b), the home server does not have to be connected to the Internet all the time and is more economical to run.
However, there are other restrictions when using remote control method (b) in that a portable terminal such as a portable telephone has a function, at best, of being able to connect to the Internet and it is not compatible with a remote connection function installed in the home server, such as a RAS. Therefore, the user is not able to perform communication with regard to the remote connection function. Also, when a remote control function is installed in a portable phone, there is a problem that the portable phone becomes less portable since compatible software needs to be installed.
This drawback or restriction does not exist in remote control method (c), where the user is able to access the home server by utilizing a compact and lightweight portable terminal such as a portable telephone, and performs the remote control operation by following voice guidance provided by the home server. However, it is time consuming for the user to perform the remote control operation in accordance with voice guidance received from the home server, and consequently it is not possible to obtain detailed information on the status of the home-located electronic devices.
Further, in each of the remote control methods (a) (b) and (c), the home server provided in a house is required to perform multiple tasks, parallely and sequentially, such as, controlling the home-located electronic devices according to control instructions received from the user; transmitting the status of the home-located electronic devices to the user's terminal; based on the status information of the home-located electronic devices prompting the user to give the home server necessary control instructions; and receiving the control instructions from the terminal. Therefore, a high level of process capability is required, in order for the home server to perform the necessary multiple operations, which consequently results in high operating costs.
Thus, due to high running costs, and the technical limitations of the prior art, the wide spread use of remote control of home-located electronic devices cannot be achieved with the existing systems.